Alton Brown's Faux Chocolate Shake Features A Nutritious Ingredient

Recently the culinary world seems to have taken to reimagining decadent desserts with a nutritious twist. For example, recipes for banana pancakes packed with fiber from oatmeal (per Ambitious Kitchen) and brownies filled with protein from black beans (via Chocolate Covered Katie) have proven that you can enjoy a sweet flavor while reaping health benefits at the same time. And "Good Eats" icon Alton Brown also appears to full-heartedly believe in that cooking principle.

Brown has taught avocado toast fanatics how to whip up avocado ice cream and brought childhood nostalgia to food lovers with his brown rice crispy bars (per Alton Brown's official website). But the cookbook author and television host has also turned his sights on putting better-for-you ingredients into more chocolatey delights. The chef has proven that he has a way with chocolate in the past by giving out his tip for successfully tempering the treat, but this time he revealed how he built a recipe for a health-conscious chocolate shake that has the same great flavor as ice cream all thanks to the help of one nutrition-packed ingredient.

Alton Brown took to his YouTube channel to guide his fans through how to build a satisfying drink, " ... that's loaded full of nutrition but also tastes a lot like chocolate and is full of caffeine." While Brown's recipe for a healthy shake includes unsweetened almond milk, a frozen banana,​​ Dutch process cocoa, a pinch of salt, ice, and (for an optional caffeine boost) coffee, the chef revealed that the ingredient responsible for providing a punch of vitamins to the shake is Medjool dates.

As noted by Healthline, a serving size of Medjool dates will give you a boost of nutrients like iron, fiber, potassium, and vitamin B6, among others. Dates are also a notably sweet-tasting food that will add a sugar-like flavor to your shake. In order to successfully prepare Brown's date-filled faux chocolate shake, in the video, the chef tells viewers to pit the dates before dipping them into the blender with most of the other ingredients, excluding ice and coffee, and then blend on medium speed. Brown explains that this speed was more effective for initially cutting the dates. After the blend becomes silky, Brown says to then throw in the ice and coffee and mix in the blender at high speed before serving up a sweet-tasting serving of a health-centric faux chocolate shake.